The War Narrative, Empire and Beyond: A Brief Sketch

The war narrative has everything in it: the play of power, conflict, adventure, solidarity and camaraderie, heroism, victory and achievement. Thus this narrative can be quite appealing at least in the abstract. Of course, in terms of the actual flesh and blood encounter with its brutal realities this story is hardly to be recommended as a way of life or one would think so.

In point of fact, the emergence and expansion of civilization as we have come to know it has been at its core, the playing out of this war-story on a grand scale. The ancient Mesopotamian empires from Sumer to Persia attest to this. Later on in our history we have had the example of the Athenian bid for empire in 5th century BCE in the Mediterranean and we should to remind ourselves of the Spartans who lived by the fruits of constant war for generations and to a great extent were admired by their Greek contemporaries for doing so. We have the Egyptian experience to the west in Northern Africa, the vast empire of Alexander the Great, followed on its heels by the incomparable might of the Romans.  And during the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance period there arose of out of the Arabian desert a powerful and vast empire to bequeath its legacies to us.  And of course to the East in Asia, we must not forget that huge and great empires arose there that have left their mark on human destiny as well.  We also find empire building in the West, in the New World with the famous examples of the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas. And finally, the peoples of the African continent gave us their version of empire too. Humanity is therefore no stranger to the experience of empire and to the experience of war with its violent conquests and destructive use of force. In fact, not only do we seem to stand in awe of the martial might of empire we seem to worship it in our patriotic hearts. It is my contention that the war-story has been written with our very blood and has embedded itself so deeply within our tortured souls for so long that too many of us have a very hard time imagining a different one that could inform our destiny.  Moreover we fail to realize and appreciate that our narratives are not neutral. They give us meaning and a social cohesiveness even when they can be so horrific and and destructive. And this is what we have to face if we truly want to live by a different story, one that does not mean or promise a permanent end to conflict, but rather one that allows us to resolve conflicts without destroying ourselves and the Earth.  And this not going to be easy.

A question naturally arises that in order for us to truly know and appreciate the warmth and need for friendship and companionship do we not need the backdrop of war with our fellow man? This is a profound and disturbing question and one to which we seem to have given at the very least an implicit and emphatic, yes.  Most of us simply cannot imagine a world without war even on a much lesser scale in the form of the win/lose competitive scenario. In fact, many would argue that only in the thick of battle can genuine valor and honor shine. Elsewhere I want to show how we have confused conflict with war thereby valorizing battle as a way to the resolution of the former.  The influential American philosopher and psychologist William James proposed a "moral equivalent to war." Even for James warfare had its moral virtues and he called upon us to find a substitute for it in our lives to maintain them. 

This is the primary issue at the core of our humanity; it is not a mere abstract problem and it never was and never will be. It seems that in the final hour we have to make a fundamental choice: to continue to make war with our fellow beings and by extension all of nature and thereby choose death and destruction, to continue to believe in the magic of sheer force to give us a sense of who we are, integrity and security or to move bravely beyond the win/lose narrative and thereby help to create a world of genuine solidarity and peace not without its problems or conflicts. But rather to move into this world through the thrust and amazing power of our imagination- a world in which our humanity can at last have a chance to fully develop. That is the world I inhabit in my heart( and I invite others to share with me) which makes me, much of the time, a lonely stranger in this one.